1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a heuristic learning application program, and more particularly to a system and method for entering user specific problems and for heuristically retrieving documented solutions within the system while maintaining connectivity between the user and the problem.
2. Description of the Background Art
Traditional expert systems are well established in the art. Expert systems are generally viewed as computing machines which are programmed with a large number of questions and answers. The user of an expert system poses his problem in the form of one or more of the programmed questions and receives an answer corresponding to the questions asked. Drawbacks of this traditional expert system relate to the requirements that the questions must be accurately posed and that the questions and answer must have been previously programmed.
A real difficulty in the traditional expert system results from the fact that users are prone to asking the "wrong questions," which invariably lead to wrong solutions. Users ask "wrong questions" when they are unable to clearly articulate the symptoms, when they do not understand the problem, or simply because they make a mistake in conveying the information. When a wrong question is asked, either no solution will be found, or the solution which is found will not solve the problem intended. When an unprogrammed question is asked, either correctly or by mistake, no solution will be found. In this instance a knowledgeable computer programmer must intervene to program the question and the correct answers, which will lead to a desired solution to the given problem.
Another important drawback of expert systems and solution retrieval systems generally, is that the user who originally poses the problem is not actively connected to the problem. This a problem because the system is prohibited from providing the user with new information as it develops on the posed question. This connectivity between user and problem should originate when the user first addresses the computer system and poses the problem. There are no known expert systems in which the user's prior problems or "incidents" are recorded in a manner useful for contributing to the present solution with respect to that particular user. Furthermore, unless the user and incident are connected, there is no way to know whether a given user's problem has been solved.